Posse Incitatus

The War on Thanksgiving

For many years people have spoken of a "War on Christmas," but there's another, more insidious struggle going on: the war on Thanksgiving.

This blog has addressed society's increasing sense of ingratitude many times over the years.  Increasingly, this is manifesting itself as a contempt for the holiday dedicated to showing gratitude.

A low point when the decision - since reversed - for stores to start Black Friday a day early.  It's not clear whether it was the customers or the put-upon employees who helped kill this awful idea, but it was indicative of a mindset that holidays are merely excuses for retail opportunities.

Similarly, the New York Times continues what appears to be a leftist tradition of planning how to piss off your family members over a communal meal dedicated to unity.  They've created a "angry uncle" bot so that its human bots can practice their talking points.

I've noted before the unintentional insult this places on young progressives, since it takes as its starting point  that they're of independent cognition and need to be programmed with bullet points, like one of those old-fashioned talking toys where you pull the string or push the button to get the desired phrase.

Indeed, even the derisive "Turkey Day" reduces a solemn feast into a mere entree.

Sadly, all of this is to be expected.  A core trait of human nature going back to the limits of recorded history is ingratitude.  We want what we don't have and despise what we do.  That's why Thanksgiving is so important.

I've found that happiest people are those who are content and appreciative of their blessings.  Naturally, these are not the people who join the left. 

I've said before that I think Michael Savage has the equation backwards - liberalism isn't a mental illness, it's a magnet for those who are already mentally ill.  One might even surmise that one reason why socialism always fails is that it is always - and without exception - implemented by people who put vengeance over prosperity.  Given a choice between feeding the poor or providing medicine and crushing their political enemies, the latter always wins out over the former.

Historically, the antidote to ingratitude was a bout of privation.  Given how long it's been since our society has known true hardship, it's bound to be a doozy.

As always, we at the Posse are most thankful for Faith, Family and Freedom, and wish you and yours a blessed Thanksgiving.

 

That which cannot be controlled must be destroyed - a new theory of Never Trumpism

UPDATE:  I'm dubbing this the "war elephant theory" of Never Trumpism.

 

The ongoing ballot shenanigans in Florida, Georgia and Arizona are all too familiar.  What is new is the endorsement of this practice by people who nominally consider themselves conservatives.

These are the ones who keep chanting “rule of law” like a magic incantation, but they seem curiously aloof when Democrats blatantly steal elections.

I am referring of course to the Quisling Never Trumpers.

Long-time readers have seen me address these vile beings at length, but something occurred to me today that makes me think I had their motivation somewhat wrong.  To be sure, they are motivated in large part by grift, but upon reflection, they are also motivated by conviction, it’s just not the conviction they speak of openly.

That conviction is that the masses are superstitious, violent, bigoted and in need of constant control and supervision.  Essentially, they think the same thing about conservatives that progressives do, but instead of seeking the outright defeat or elimination of the GOP base, they see themselves as keepers of the beast.

Many of them are atheists, though they have kept this quiet until recently.  Moreover, they are the kind of atheist who feels utter contempt on those who take religion seriously.  This is why so many of them hector evangelical voters as being hypocrites for voting for Trump.  The vitriol comes from a place of hatred, not a desire to educate or persuade.  George Will is in this camp, as is the dolt still calling himself Allahpundit.

The religious wing actually shares the same loathing, but for different reasons.  They consider themselves more pure than the louts who soil the pews around them, and they believe that by constantly turning the other cheek (and thereby losing every political battle) they are demonstrating their superior piety and virtue.

The Protestants can point to their prominence and prosperity as evidence that they are in the Elect, while the Catholic and Orthodox liken themselves the martyrs of old.  This is why Ed Morrissey is all about selfless surrender on every issue.  Rod Dreher is even more extreme, pitching his ludicrous “Benedict Option” of simply ceding the world to leftist extremists and hiding out in the hills until someone else gets the moral strength to stop them.

One could write an entire essay on the Jewish faction, but David Horowitz pretty much nailed it when he described William Kristol as a “renegade Jew.”  Many of these ‘neocons’ are legacy members of the conservative establishment and never experienced the personal revelation that turned their fathers from the left.  Having been born on third base, they harbor a brooding contempt for those stuck on first.

All of these groups actually agree that “red America” is populated with hot-heads, who at any moment could launch themselves into violence on a regional scale.  This is why George W. Bush was so insistent on not mentioning militant Islam as an enemy.  He truly feared the overnight appearance of Klan militias.

It is also why these people  were always lukewarm of the right to life.  In fact, they are closer to Margaret Sanger than they’d like to admit.  Kevin Williamson gave the game away when he went on his infamous rant about rural white communities needing to die.

Ironically, Williamson has stridently defended the right to life, which cost him his gig at The Atlantic, but he clearly doesn’t like the people he’s supposed to be defending.  He’s also done nothing constructive for the cause he claims to hold dear.

Their deep dislike of the rural whites who make up their following is why they are so infatuated with immigration.  They long for the day that they, too can have a “diverse” following.  Even though it may be a permanent political minority, at least they won’t have to pretend to like NASCAR and guns.

Speaking of guns, there are few establishment conservatives who actually own them, let alone think anyone else should have them.  The Never Trumpers are almost uniformly in favor of sharp restrictions on gun ownership, precisely because they think their base is mentally unstable and could snap at a moment’s notice.

Some years ago when “The Walking Dead” was a new thing, a robust debate took place on National Review’s blog and a number of military members pointed out how a zombie outbreak would likely be contained quickly once the military got involved.

Combat Lawyer David French strongly disagreed, and his argument revealed he had nothing but contempt for the people he served with, regarding them as undisciplined, selfish and brutal.

All of these people see conservatives as essentially a monster to be tamed and controlled.  The propensity of conservatives to have religious faith, to own firearms and even to serve in the military are all reasons they need to be constantly policed and watched. 

To do that, they often affect a laid-back, devil-may care persona, such as the one crafted by Jonah Goldberg in the 1990s.  We should relate to him because he likes Star Wars and makes Simpsons jokes.  He likes to play the everyman who plays with his dog, savors spiced meats and drinks beer while watching movies.  He’s a true mench.

Except that he isn’t, and he’s always known that.  His job was to throw just enough snark at the left to keep his charges under control, and when they stopped listening to him in 2016, the mask fell away.  His true personality – insecure, status-conscious, arrogant – has come out at last.  The guy who wrote self-deprecating columns about sitting on a semi-sentient couch now wants everyone to know he’s a serious scholar and holds an endowed chair.

Ask yourself:  what happens when an animal disobeys its trainer?  Does the trainer use reason and persuasion, or does it impose sharp discipline and reassert dominance?

The Never Trumpers thought of the base as a pack of dogs for so long, they don’t understand why smacking us with newspapers and ordering us to heel isn’t working.

It’s also why their arguments are so devoid of any kind of persuasion.  After all, why waste logic on an animal?

The core belief in the propensity of conservatives toward mindless violence unless controlled explains a lot of the neocon obsession with starting wars abroad, doesn’t it?  Max Boot is probably convinced that absent some desert to fight and die in, the rednecks who make up the bulk of the Army may well turn on him.  Better to keep them busy chasing around the Hindu Kush.  Permanent war is a necessary safety valve to keep America’s Cossacks from descending on the Jews.

And yes, they do believe their base is both racist and anti-Semitic and when we stopped responding to the crack of their whip, they came out and said so.

In light of all this, it makes sense that these tools would parrot liberal talking points that voter fraud is a myth.  As part of their worldview, they believe that it’s more important that the masses be deluded and restrained than that system actually work.

Because once people stop believing that the elections are accurate, they might take matters into their own hands.  Again, the beast has to be kept sedated.  They can’t understand how their arguments are actually making rebellion more likely since the left is now so blatant in its cheating no serious-minded person can doubt that it’s going on.

Thus we come to the final step of their play, which is an overt, actual alliance with the left.  The monster they thought they controlled has slipped its chain and they will work with anyone they can find to bring about its destruction. 

And so, like a trainer who was watched their beast rampage into the circus crowd, they are willing to shed a tear as they try to put down the beast, but they have no doubt in their heart that the beast must die.

The truth about the Catholic Church scandal that none dare to speak

This week Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano released his third open letter or "testimony." 

It is powerful stuff.  In his introduction he states plainly that he feels compelled to speak out because to do otherwise would put his soul in mortal danger.  He cannot go before God without telling the world all he knows about the evil lurking in the bosum of the Catholic Church.

The then goes on and rebuts the Papacy's talking points that his charges have been successfully disproven or refuted, noting that the Pope's henchmen are focusing on discrediting things he didn't say and ignoring the things he did say.

The conclusion, however, is even more powerful:

As to the second silence, this very grave crisis cannot be properly addressed and resolved unless and until we call things by their true names. This is a crisis due to the scourge of homosexuality, in its agents, in its motives, in its resistance to reform. It is no exaggeration to say that homosexuality has become a plague in the clergy, and it can only be eradicated with spiritual weapons. It is an enormous hypocrisy to condemn the abuse, claim to weep for the victims, and yet refuse to denounce the root cause of so much sexual abuse: homosexuality. It is hypocrisy to refuse to acknowledge that this scourge is due to a serious crisis in the spiritual life of the clergy and to fail to take the steps necessary to remedy it.

Unquestionably there exist philandering clergy, and unquestionably they too damage their own souls, the souls of those whom they corrupt, and the Church at large. But these violations of priestly celibacy are usually confined to the individuals immediately involved. Philandering clergy usually do not recruit other philanderers, nor work to promote them, nor cover-up their misdeeds -- whereas the evidence for homosexual collusion, with its deep roots that are so difficult to eradicate, is overwhelming.

He's absolutely right.  We live in a fallen world, and when a leader fails to live up to a moral code, it is a tragedy.

Given the size of the Catholic Church, such failings are inevitable.  They are to be expected and they happen in all faiths because all religious leaders in this world are mortals, prone to error by their nature.

What sets this scandal apart is that there is an organized faction within the Church hiding and enabling it.

Like most Catholics, I assumed Church leaders were simply unaware of the scope of the problem and had been duped and betrayed by canny and unscrupulous predators.  I believed that the payments and coverups were made out of a sincere (but flawed) hope that the individuals would repent and sin no more and the fear that the Church's reputation would so harmed as to damage its mission.

It goes without saying that I strongly disagree with the Church's actions, but I thought I could understand them.

I know know - the world now knows - differently.

These crooked priests and their degenerate bishops never meant to reform, they were only playing a game.  They victimized not just children, but also other priests in their depravity.

And they were overwhelmingly homosexual.

Indeed, they celebrated this fact and flaunted it whenever possible, only to play the victim card about Catholic "homophobia" whenever they faced exposure. 

But sexual predators are despicable whether gay or straight. 

The State of Michigan is now conducting on investigation and the dioceses are promising full cooperation.  Closer to home, one of the pastors in my diocese recently resigned his position after credible allegations of sexual harassment.  We've since learned that his target wasn't just a church employee, but another priest.

How often did priests keep this to themselves, fearful of retaliation or creating scandal?  It is sad that such things have happened, but also encouraging that good men are speaking out and stopping this behavior in its tracks.

Pope Francis has long frustrated conservative Catholics with this erratic utterances, obsession with trendy progressive causes and his constant flirtations with heresy, but his failure to address this situation directly has destroyed his moral authority.

 

Pope Francis must resign

I agree with much of what my esteemed co-blogger has written about the corruption in the Catholic Church, but I also feel he paints with too broad a brush.

Don't worry, this isn't another one of those "only a tiny minority of bad people are responsible" apologies because it's clear that the minority isn't so tiny.

It's also clear that their transgressions were deliberate, which is to say intentional.  I long believed that good but conflicted people in holy orders failed and continued to fail in times of weakness.  They sincerely repented upon fear of being caught or perhaps truly wished to change, but always returned to their sinful ways.

I also thought that their superiors covered up for them out of misguided compassion and a sense of shame.  I now know better.

The Left has been trying to destroy the Church since it first emerged in the tumult of the French Revolution.    The virulent anti-clericalism that emerged was the direct ancestor of Marxism and has been passed onto modern Progressivism.

The libertine left wants to destroy all other sources of moral authority, so bringing down all churches is a necessary first step to implement their desire of fundamentally remaking humanity.

The Protestant churches have largely succumbed to this onslaught, but Catholicism remains stubbornly defiant.  Its size, deep traditions, respect for authority and heirarchical structure render it all but impervious to external assault.

So it's enemies changed their tactics and chose to undermine it from within.

How else to explain the strange silence from the Vatican when the Pennsylvania report was released?  The reaction should have been swift and severe - removal from authority of every named office holder until a full investigation could be conducted.

The payoffs were supposedly to prevent "scandal," but a greater scandal is leaving these false holy men in place.  Authority within the Church is a sacred honor, not a right or a title of nobility.  Bishops and higher clergy should willingly step down if there is any doubt as to their behavior and cheerfully submit themselves to a life of humility while the investigation proceeds.

It is, after all, the example of Christ Himself.

The fact that none of this happened and that the Pope wishes to change the subject is to me compelling evidence of his guilt.  

His cabal is a cancer within the Church and it must be expelled.  If he won't resign, the dioceses and bishops should withhold contributions to the Holy See until he submits.  Similarly, I would hope the various patriarchates in communion with Rome would likewise suspend their relationship until Francis relinquishes the Throne of St. Peter.

In this sense I disagree with my colleague about the proper response.  The Church as a whole is a caring, nurturing organization.  I love my parish and respect our local priests.  Our bishop has demonstrated exactly the zero-tolerance attitude I have spoken of in recent cases regarding potential wrongdoing by priests.  In both cases suspension was immediate and local authorities were promptly brought in to investigate.

Happily, in neither incident was there the hint of a sexual crime, but the message went out loud and clear: the collar is a sacred duty not to be taken lightly.

It is no accident that as standards have grown stricter, the quantity and quality of seminarians have both increased.  I have no desire to harm my parish by withholding financial or spiritual support.  These people are doing good work.  God bless them all.

No, the pressure must be directly squarely at the Curia of Rome.  Not a dime to the Vatican! 

Catholics around the world need to boycott the Holy See until he steps down.  Let Pope Francis hold his audiences in an empty chamber and offer prayers to a vacant square. 

The Church has faced similar challenges before, and always by the grace of God she has weathered the storm.  With God's help, we will get through this one as well and the Church will be renewed once more.

When heresy gives way to outright paganism

One of the core tenets of the Protestant Reformation was the primacy of scripture over all other sources of divine inspiration.  Martin Luther was inconsistent in this (and his successors went much farther), but the source of most - if not all - variations on Catholic/Orthodox Christianity is a differing interpretation of the Bible.

The Church of England was unique among the Protestants insofar as its split from Rome was entirely on secular grounds:  Henry VIII wanted to marry again so he could produce a male heir.

In time, some differences in use emerged, but they were quite minor.  It was probably because the distinctions were so small that Anglicans made such a big deal about their independent thought and threw so much hate at Catholics (that and it was a way to piss all over their Irish subjects).

The collapse of the Church of England is fascinating to see and the pace of its devolution is accelerating.  The new hotness - which has popped up before in nominally Lutheran Sweden - is "de-gendering" God. 

The reasons are the same as for the Swedish Church - supposedly it makes it more "inclusive," which means traditionalists are to be driven out entirely.

The article referenced above indicates that the new Book of Common Prayer could be ready for approval as early as 2030.

I think it will take effect long before that.  Once the left decides it wants something, it never lets an established process slow it down.  In the short run, individual parishes will simply make up their own version knowing full well that no one in the Anglican Communion will ever face discipline for violating their rules.

Like the United Methodists, the Anglicans have for some time been having an unofficial contest to see just how many commandments its clergy can break with impunity.

The end result won't be recognizable as a Christian church, it will be either Unitarian or overtly pagan, centered around a "Mother Earth" goddess.

This is what the left does.  It burrows into institutions, hollows them out and then pretends the corpse is still a living, sentient being. 

There is of course a certain amount of irony that an institution that once burned witches will likely be run by them in the very near future.

 

When Mothers Day became a revolutionary act

The prolonged winter has led to  an amazing burst of growth.  Trees and flowers are practically exploding into bloom an in effort to catch up on lost time.  A couple of weeks ago my neighborhood was brown and bare, but now it is awash in every imaginable shade of green punctuated with brilliant hues of purple, white, yellow and red (to name jut a few).

It's no accident that Mothers Day falls on a Sunday in May.  From time immemorial women have symbolized fertility, growth and hope for the future, just as spring frees us from the seeming death of winter.

Yet to the cultural left, motherhood is no longer a blessing. "Choice" is more important - and by this they of course mean violent death to the unborn or being-born. 

Many commentators (including us on this blog) have offered alternative definitions of "feminism," but perhaps its most striking feature is its rejection of femininity itself.  Women are uniquely capable of motherhood, a sacred and crucial rule, honored in every culture in every epoch.  Yet feminists have nothing but contempt for women who choose to make this role the centerpiece of their lives.  Some go so far as to denounce fecund women as "breeders" and blame them for every evil in the world. 

The chimera of overpopulation vanished long ago, yet feminists still raise it as a way to explain, justify and even exalt in their barrenness.

For what history will surely look on as a fleeting instant, a strange group calling themselves "pro-sex feminists" at least celebrated female sexuality, but even that is being buried in the "yes means yes" and "#metoo" movement, which hold as their core teaching that women no longer have the force of will or mental ability to truly consent to sexual activity.

Simply telling a man who makes an ungallant offer to get lost is too much to expect.  Why he might get angry, or break up with her, or refuse a second date!  And so they acquiesce, but reserve the right to ruin him later on by smearing him as a rapist without a shred of proof.

Even Her Hillaryness Herself is insisting that she lost the vote of married women because of pressure exercised on them by their fathers, husbands and sons.  Is she saying women shouldn't be allowed to vote, or marry?  But even then, they still have fathers.

It is a puzzlement.

There is a tendency among aging Boomers to try to defend "original" feminism and claim it ran off the rails, but this nonsense has been baked into it from the beginning.  Feminism owes its origins and world view to the experience of idle, rich, white women. 

It is deeply ironic - and indicative - that the glamorous life of Hollywood feminists, with its endless stream of ex-husbands, lovers and random children with different fathers, has now been exposed as a colossal lie.

Even Hollywood royalty like Angelina Jolie now claim to have been pressured into sex.  We've already discussed how "male feminist" is really just a synonym for a sexual predator who targets only the most vulnerable women.

Left out of this lamentable tale is one group, still the most despised in all of feminism:  happily married mothers.  They committed to marriage for life, raised their children and stand by their man.  The culture hates them for it, but jealously always hates what it can't have.

In an age of destruction where the sacred is constantly being profaned, honoring tradition becomes a revolutionary act.  It warms my ice-cold heart to know today millions of mothers will be thanked and honored by their children.

The view from NeverTrumpLand

I freely admit that I took more than a little guilty pleasure at the suffering of the Quisling Never Trumpers at Red State.   I don't generally wish anyone to suffer the pain of job loss, but at the same time it's hard to have sympathy for people who show you such utter contempt.

To put it another way: if you constantly insult your audience, don't be shocked when the bottom falls out of your writing gig.

But I digress.  Today's project isn't to hurl more invective at the Fredocons, but rather to attempt a degree of understanding - yea, even empathy - with them. 

One of the left's great weaknesses is their increasing inability to understand their opponents.  We must not fall into the same trap, which is I think what the Never Trumpers have done.

If one takes a step back and merely looks at the big picture, the change in the political landscape is actually quite breathtaking.  In the space of 18 months, a number of formerly pivotal figures on the Establishment Right (aka "Conservatism, Inc.") have not only broken with their party, but completely repudiated many of their long-term policy positions.

People have been having fun with Jennifer Rubin's complete 180 turn on everything she ever stood for, and while it's comical, it's also deeply puzzling.  This is not normal or healthy behavior.  Even the genteel turncoats at National Review are calling her out on it.

The increasingly punchable (oops, there I go again) Bill Kristol is another strange case.  Not so long ago, he was one of the major voices in Official Conservatism and yet now he's a raving lunatic, howling away on Twitter without any sense of self-awareness.

Again, it's one thing to jump ship over a policy difference.  A great many Republicans started out a old-line Democrats.  Winston Churchill actually managed to jump ship twice - no mean feat.

I would argue that this is actually the right thing to do when a political party no longer represents your values or interests.  Alternatively, you might have a change a of heart regarding the issues of the day (for example, moving to the pro-life side upon beholding the true horror of abortion), and that in turn might require a change of party.

But the Never Trumpers aren't doing that.  They haven't come out and said:  "You know, that whole Originalist Constitution is bunk.  I'm all in on the Administrative State, and here's why."

It's true that they've effectively said this, but there's never any intellectual argument to back it up, just Trump hatred. 

Is that really all that it took to break these people?  Jonah Goldberg used to relish being the enfant terrible of the conservative movement, but now he's just a grouchy dude yelling at everyone to get off his lawn.  His newest book is likely to impress no one and sell poorly since it appears to be nothing more than a long-winded recitation of his pet peeves.

Once upon a time, he could count conservatives running out and buying his book not just because they were interested in what he had to say, but because they wanted to support a fellow believer.  After two years of pissing on the majority of his party, one wonders what market he has left.

That brings me to another strange aspect to this phenomenon.  Political commentary is necessarily a narrow market, split pretty sharply down the middle.  Liberals generally read liberal (or progressive) stuff, conservatives read conservatives stuff.  There isn't a lot of overlap.

This means that the galaxy of one's audience is only about half of the body politic.  What the Never Trumpers have done is narrow their market by about 80 percent, because at least that many Republicans support Trump in some aspect.  It may be reluctant support or a tactical choice, but people who made the decision to support the president probably aren't interested in paying to have other people insult them.

Yet that's a big part of the Never Trump product.  They don't just slag on The Donald himself, they slag on everyone else who might have decided that - on balance - he was a better choice than the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua, Felonia Milhous Pantsuit von Clinton.

Eric Erickson (whom I never read) is one of those evangelicals that apparently like to rip on other evangelicals over Trump.  These people are particularly irritating.  They basically embody every nasty stereotype regarding the religious right:  holier-than-thou, intolerant, insufferably arrogant, tone-deaf.

These are the kind of people who embrace Rod Dreher's mindless (but super-sanctimonious) concept of running off into the hills and building monasteries until someone else fixes things.  Or civilization collapses, whatever.  At least they'll be pure when the End Times come.

(Again, these people consider themselves deep thinkers and this is what they came up with to solve the pressing issues of the day: hiding in a monastery.)

Not surprisingly, the market isn't there for what they're selling and - making matters worse - the progressives have decided that they're not interested in taking prisoners, only counting corpses.  This is why Kevin Williamson's sacking has scared them so much.  They've boxed themselves in.

There is of course an escape from this personal and professional prison they've created:  defecting to the right and embracing Trump.

A lot of people have done it.  It's actually pretty easy if one has an open mind and looks past the hype to see what The Donald is actually doing.  It's been interesting to see a number of familiar faces over at American Greatness who used to be at Establishment Conservative publications.  I don't think any were ever true Never Trumpers, though.  When it came down to it, they gritted their teeth and punched the card for Trump.  For them, it was the Flight 93 Election and they figured storming the cockpit was the only option left.

Indeed, their appearance isn't so much a capitulation to Trumpism as removing themselves from the lingering stink of Vichy Republicanism at their former publications.

And maybe that's the core issue after all.  It's a hard thing to admit one's wrong, especially when one is badly wrong.  For the better part of two decades, National Review and The Weekly Standard documented the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Clinton mafia.  It was almost its own genre.  Their prose was ruthless and hard-hitting as they accomplished one character assassination piece after another.

And yet not only was Her Hillaryness poised to take the crown, when push came to shove, these useless tools decided to shout "I'm With Her!"

(Actually, Goldberg didn't even have the guts to do that.  He took the fake high ground of doing absolutely nothing.  Talk about a profile in cowardice.)

2016 was a hinge-point election, and we're feeling its effects.  Donald Trump isn't a blowhard lightweight with a five-second attention span.  He is moving with deliberation and skill to transform the economic, strategic and political landscape, making it much friendlier to American interests and traditional conservatism in particular.

Having gotten the One Big Thing wrong, I guess its understandable that the Never Trumpers would retreat into snark and intellectual incoherence.

The other issue of course is not only were these folks morally wrong, they were also factually wrong.  Hillary didn't win, Trump didn't cost the GOP control of Congress, and he hasn't unleashed an endless depression or started World War III.  All of their predictions have proven false.

Even worse, many of their policy preferences have been exposed as false as well.  The free trade lie has been exposed for all the world to see.  We're also finally figuring out just how much Open Borders are costing us in terms of lower wages and higher crime - not to mention voting fraud.

We also have Europe to thank for exposing the fallacy of gun control.  The UK in particular is doing  bang-up job in demonstrating that it is people, not things that cause violent crime.

Oddly, some of the Never Trumpers picked this exact moment to jump aboard the Gun Control Express.  I guess when you're wrong, you may as well go all in.

An alternative explanation for this erratic behavior is class envy.  That is to say, Trump is viewed as vulgar, and his followers are distasteful, thus both must be cast out of the light.

This may well be true - peer groups can have a profound impact on people.  In my own life I recognized that hanging out with a certain crowd was holding me back both professionally and in terms of personal growth. 

I'd be more sympathetic to this argument if Never Trumpism was more uniform, but it isn't.  You'd think that at the end of the day, even the hard-core members would have chosen stated principle (that is, the Clintons must be kept well away from power at all costs) over class, but I guess not.

The thing about class is that it's entirely a state of mind.  I learned this from my grandparents, who were self-made.  From modest beginnings they ascended into the ranks of the Country Club Republicans.  They carried themselves like Old Money and had the easy arrogance of those who don't worry about status because they decide who has it. 

Perhaps the Goldbergs of the world lack that kind self-confidence.  Certainly the chinless wonders at National Review spend a lot of time trying to curry liberal approval.  Even though the term "racist" is pretty much an empty insult, they sure do get worked up when progressives throw it at them.

Thus these folks find themselves seeking favor from people who hate them anyway and alienating the crowd that used to admire them.  I know that we never really leave high school, but isn't this taking clique envy a little far?

 

 

Is the ecumenical movement dead?

This week I attended a funeral at a United Methodist church.  The closing blessing was in the the name of "God the Creator, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Given that the United Methodists are following the same trajectory as the other progressive denominations, I wonder how long it will be before they, too reject the Nicean Creed.

The Church of Sweden has already done so and the Anglicans are well on their way to becoming Unitarians.

It is hard to see how any of these groups can relate to more orthodox Christian bodies.   In fact, they are more likely to face additional internal schisms from their old guard than achieve larger Christian unity.

The recent agreement between the Swedish church and the Vatican to allow the first Catholic mass in Lund cathedral since the Reformation may seem to contradict my point, but I think it reinforces it.

The Swedish church is dying.  The population is overwhelmingly secular, which is partly why its church leaders no longer take doctrine seriously.  No one really cares what they say any more.

Yet all those empty buildings cost money and allowing a Catholic parish to borrow one for a time makes sense.  I suspect it is only a matter of time before the property is sold - either to the Catholics or to be converted as a mosque.

Joint prayer services are fine, but the doctrinal gap is only getting wider.

Of course the other way of looking at this is that the progressive Protestants are willing themselves into extinction, thereby creating Christian unity be default.

The brightest day of the year

Today we share the joyous news: the tomb is empty!  Christ has risen!

If the trial and crucifixion of Jesus showcased the sin and depravity of humanity, His resurrection shows us that there is a path of forgiveness and redemption.

This is a particularly important concept in our current age.  Cultural marxism is in many ways a throwback to a pre-Christian era, where forgiveness does not exist.  To the progressive, there are only those who toe the Party line and enemies.

The Party regularly purges its members, often because the left has no permanent principles, only immediate needs in its efforts to gain and retain absolute power.  Thus, one might have been a high priest of the state religion one day, and a counterrevolutionary shot for treason the next.

As the Soviet prisons filled up with purge after purge, the cell walls were lined with plaintive scrawlings demanding to know what the accused had done wrong?  They were all good Communists and meant no harm!  Could they not be forgiven?

No.

Some few might be "rehabilitated," but for most damnation was eternal.

In our current age, progressives use social media for their wet work, ruining careers and sometimes hounding people to suicide.  Each day a new victim is chosen, a new witch is found and - all too often - another life is ruined.

Sometimes the left picks its victims based on race.  There is no longer any interest in a colorblind society or racial reconciliation.  There are only the impure and those empowered to hand out punishment.

Easter shows us that there is an alternative, a way of forgiveness and redemption and that is is possible for love to triumph over hatred, good to prevail over evil.

This hope has endured despite every imaginable persecution and this is what gives me hope.

I am also encouraged by the fact that the rising generation is returning to the faith in increasing numbers.  The local parish is swamped with college students choosing to enter the Church.  There is a new and rapidly growing community of nuns in Ann Arbor of all places.  Our seminaries are steadily filling up again, helping to ease the shortage of priests.

The left knows this, and is desperately trying to stop it, using their usual lies and distortions to try to undermine the faithful.  The recent nonsense about Pope Francis denying there is such thing as Hell is a great example of this.

The story was of course timed to break just before Easter.  The source was an Italian editor who makes a point of never taking notes or taping his interviews and is a known atheist.  This is the polite way of saying there was zero proof that it ever happened.

Supposedly His Holiness blurted out this heresy in a social call, which the editor felt compelled to leak.

Back in the real world, the pope has repeatedly and publicly taught Church doctrine regarding Hell and damnation, but of course this was left out of all the breathless news stories.

Sadly, not a few Catholics fell for the ruse, which is why the left will continue to use is diabolical tactics.  I have to say I find their trust of the mainstream press puzzling, given that it's pretty clear that our current journalists don't even know what Easter is.  It's hard to take them seriously on anything pertaining to Christianity or Church doctrine.

The victory of Easter is a triumph over such lies and its truth still shines forth. 

Yesterday was the darkest day of the year, but today is the brightest. 

The tomb is empty and Christ is risen!

 

The darkest day of the year

Today Jesus lies in the tomb.  He was mocked, scourged, pierced and crucified and died.  He was allowed burial only because those power no longer considered him a threat.

The Son of Man was killed by men.

His disciples are dispersed and in hiding.  His miracles are for the moment forgotten.  Darkness reigns supreme.

Tomorrow everything will change, but that lies in the future.  At the moment, God's victory is in doubt.

More than two decades ago I took a class that probably can't be offered today:  "The history of American intellectual conservatism."  It examined the writings of names many of our readers have doubtless heard of, but they were new to me at the time:  Thomas Sowell, William F. Buckley, Camille Paglia (though of course she would deny that she should be included).

According to the professor, one of the cornerstones of American (as opposed to European) conservatism is Original Sin.  Man is a fallen creature, and his nature cannot be changed.  In the years since taking that course, my knowledge of both politics and religion has grown immeasurably, but the concept of man as a fallen creature remains the centerpiece of my worldview.

The left denies this concept.  They believe that man can be redeemed here on earth, if only the right teachings are used.  Their very name - "progressive" - shows that they think there an evolution underway, one that will result in paradise on earth.

If only the people can be properly taught.

Repeated experience teaches us that this is a deadly lie.

Churches tainted by progressive thought have embraced this theology.  Sacred scripture has been reinterpreted because people back then were so less advanced than we are today.  They have transformed sins into virtues, and for them redemption is found not in the hereafter, but in the here and now by proclaiming an ever-shifting set of public policy objectives.

Note that no spiritual transformation is necessary to achieve this salvation.  It is entirely secular.

When Hillary Clinton spoke of irredeemable "deplorables," she was saying more than she knew, because the flip side of this secular redemption is secular condemnation.

Those who reject this salvation must be destroyed for the common good.  Social media has amplified this sense of righteous fury, and the baleful eye of the Elect can fall on anyone at any time. 

Whether you run an obscure pizza joint in Indiana or a bakery in Colorado, your very livelihood can be destroyed if you fail to say the right thing at the right time.

Apologizing does not good, because conversion isn't the goal.  Punishment is the goal.  An example must be made to keep the others in line.

And so another victim is hanged, or stoned to death, or nailed to the cross as the mob howls in joy and fury.  Their is nary a pause before they move on the next victim.

Today should remind us that we have not changed and we cannot change.  The same sinful impulses that stirred back then are with us still, and all the more dangerous because we have started to deny that they are there. 

In fact, many of us have convinced ourselves that wrath is a virtue rather than a vice.

Not long ago I heard a liberal pastor talk about how important it was to stop Trump and his vile followers and he described how necessary it was to put more "hate has no home here" signs up as a message against those people.

He was of course referring to the deplorables.  The irredeemable.

It spoke volumes to me that this man's solution to the alleged problem of hate wasn't to engage the people he disagreed with in conversation, seeking to understand their views, but rather to urge his flock to advertise their superior virtue.

The Pharisees smiled.

It is shaping up to be a beautiful day, hardly a time for sackcloth and ashes after a long and dreary winter.  However it is worth taking a moment to reflect on our fallibility and thereby learn humility as well as mercy.